Recognizing and Curing Toxic Faith

Well good morning everybody and good morning to everybody watching at venue via video. It is great to have everybody here. My name is René, I'm one of the pastors here and I want to give you a quick 2020 vision update. If you've been with us any time during the last year, you know that one of the things we hope to do is build a children's ministry building here. The funds have all been pledged, but this Tuesday night we face one of our biggest hurdles yet at 6pm at New Brighton Middle School. The local water board is considering a complete building moratorium that stops all building projects indefinitely, including ours, even though ours would use a lot less water than we use currently.

So if you believe that you want that children's building to be here, we really need you to be there at the meeting. There's a lot more seats this time and this is an even more important meeting than last time. To add value, here at TLC starting at 4.30, we're going to have a free hot dog dinner and a prayer meeting. So we hope to see you here between 4.30 and 5.30 for the dinner. We're going to pray about this and then head over to New Brighton Middle School at 6pm and remember the three P's: be present, be positive, and be prayerful.

In fact, let's pray about this right now, alright? Let's pray again. Father, we just want to pray, your will be done. If it's your will that we build now, let it be done and your will be done in our lives at every level. In fact, I would ask that you bless us now with your insight into the Word in Jesus' name, amen.

I got to tell you something, the last several days here at Twin Lakes Church have been amazing. The last couple of weeks or so, you heard the Mexico report earlier today and just last weekend on Memorial Day weekend, the TLC San Francisco outreach team served food and washed feet and fixed a shower and just generally reached out to the poor up there in the city at the rescue mission downtown. Just four days before that, Project Homeless Connect here in Santa Cruz, hundreds of homeless people who wanted help to get back on the grid, get medical help, employment help were assisted. The organization that contributed by far the most volunteers to this was, guess what? Twin Lakes Church, that's right.

And just three days before that, at the world's biggest garage sale here at TLC, over $48,000 was raised, enough to feed nearly 200,000 people. Isn't that awesome? I'll tell you, as one of your pastors, I am just so delighted to see the love of Jesus going out into our communities. And that's just the stuff in the last few days through Twin Lakes Church, that's not to mention the other great things that other great churches here in Santa Cruz are doing. That's pretty cool when churches do stuff like that, isn't it?

But sometimes, churches are not like that. Sometimes we go bad. Sometimes we go toxic. Sometimes you could ask a hundred people in a room who are not Christians and ask them, "Why not?" And a large percentage will say, "I'll tell you why." Because of those headlines or because of the Crusades, because of the violence against the Jews in the name of Christ, because of the witch trials in the name of Christ, because of the televangelist scandals, because of the priest abuse scandals, because of what I call toxic faith.

Now what does the Bible have to say about toxic faith? You know what? You can actually not find another ancient book more critical of religion than the Bible. Over and over and over again, the Bible warns against toxic faith. When the place to heal becomes the place that hurts, Jesus warns about it, John warns about it, Jude warns about it, and in today's scripture, the Apostle Paul warns about it. Grab your message notes inside your bulletins that look like this. Strong Grace is our verse-by-verse series in the book of 2 Timothy in the Bible. And this morning we'll see that Paul talks about recognizing and curing toxic faith.

Religion as a force is so powerful, but that's why when a religious leader goes bad, it's bad. There was a monk named Peter the Hermit in the early Middle Ages. He was not an official priest of any kind of a church, but he was a stirring, electrifying preacher, and he led 40,000 poor peasants into battle during the first crusade. 40,000 poor people, and they were almost all slaughtered. Except ironically for Peter the Hermit, who survived and slinked back to Europe and then did it all over again. And to me, that right there is a sad icon of a toxic religious leader who just brings destruction.

And the Apostle Paul warns Christians that this sort of thing is coming. Do you remember the context for this book of the Bible, 2 Timothy? Paul is writing one last letter before he is beheaded by Nero in Rome. He knows this awaits him. He's in prison. And so he warns Timothy, the pastor of the influential church in Ephesus, about the biggest danger to the church. And you know what's interesting? Paul's sitting there in prison. He knows he's about to be beheaded, and he warns Timothy about the biggest danger to the church, and it's not Nero. It's not persecution. It's not the Roman government. It's not danger from outside. It's abuse from inside.

Paul warns they have depraved minds and a counterfeit faith, and he's not talking about the Roman oppressors. He's talking about false leaders inside the church. And the Bible talks about counterfeit faith like this so many times. There's almost a book of the Bible that you can find that doesn't have this inside of it, and yet again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Christians fall for counterfeit faith and toxic religious leaders. Why? When we're warned against it so much? Well, for one thing, these guys are extremely sneaky. But for another thing, we don't take all these warnings seriously. We think, "I'm not vulnerable. My beautiful church is certainly not vulnerable."

We think, "This isn't talking about me." Or we think, especially here in Santa Cruz, "Whatever you want to believe, whoever you want to follow, that's good. It's all good. It's all good." But Paul tells Timothy, "It's not all good, actually. It's not all good. Some of it's really bad. And if you don't see the crazy coming, you could end up following guys like this." And as a pastor, I've got to tell you, I am so sorry that toxic faith and toxic churches and church leaders have hurt some people in this room. I'm sure of it, sadly. But this is never what Jesus intended church to be.

Church was meant to be a gathering, a community, a family that is positive, that is healing, that's encouraging. And to assure that it stays that way, you and I have to hear what Paul has to say about the symptoms, the characteristics, and the cures for toxic faith. So first, symptoms of toxic faith. In Adam Nye's excellent message last weekend, we saw that Paul told Timothy not to attack people, right? Not to get into big blow-up arguments, not to be uncivil. But in this passage, Paul says, "That will not always be easy." Verse 1 of 2 Timothy 3, he says, "But mark this, there will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people."

Now when I was growing up, I went to great churches, not toxic churches, great churches growing up, but I have to admit, every sermon I remember hearing on this passage when I was growing up got it completely wrong. Because the pastor looked at these verses and said, "That's right, this is about those worldly people out there. Have nothing to do with such people. You stay away from people of the world out there." But that doesn't make sense that Paul would say, "In the last days, I predict that people will be bad." Because that's a pretty safe prediction. People have always been bad like this. That's saying, "In the last days, people will breathe oxygen." You know, why would he say that? People have always been like this.

The warning here is that people will be like this in the church. In context, his whole letter is warning Timothy about dangers within the church. And Paul here uses 19 words to describe those abusive leaders. I just want to highlight a few so you get the gist of what he's talking about. He says, "They'll be boastful." In the original Greek language, it's the word "alazon," which means a bragger, a self-promoter. He brags and boasts about his accomplishments. It's always "me, me, me." The ministry is about his career advancement. And then he says, "abusive." And that's the Greek word "blasphemio," that we get the word "blasphem" from. But this is talking about being abusive in speech toward other people, to injure others with your tongue, to get ahead by sarcastically, cynically, costically putting other people down.

And I'm sad to say this is so true of so many trying to gain a following in Christianity. It is amazing to me sometimes. When you tune into Christian radio, the kind of things that you can hear people putting other people down in the most abusive ways. And then he uses the word "unholy." "Anosios" is the Greek word. It's not so much what you might think of as unholy like "unreligious." It means not so much violating the written law. In Greek, this word was most often used violating common decency. You could translate it "indecent" or "gross" or "nauseating." It's a word that's used elsewhere in Greek to describe having an incestuous relationship or molesting a child. The church abuse scandals, pastors, priests, boy scout leaders, molesting children. It's nauseating. It's disgusting. It's violating the essence of what is right and decent. That's what this word means.

So you get the idea that he's talking about here in these 19 words in the first part of 2 Timothy 3. Now, I want you to see something. Jesus Christ warns against these exact kind of people way back in the Sermon on the Mount when he starts his ministry in Matthew 7. He says, "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves." And that word translated "ferocious" can also mean ravenous. He's saying instead of building you up and looking after the flock, they're consuming you, they're ravenous. But then Jesus says, "Here is the way to spot them." And what does he say? By their what? By their fruit. You will recognize them.

What does Jesus mean by their fruit? You'll recognize them. He does not mean by their results, by their flashy ministry because in the very next verse people come up to Jesus and say, "But in your name we did miracles. In your name we cast out demons. In your name we had successful ministry." Jesus says, "Depart from me. I never knew you." So what does he mean by fruit? Well Paul talks about it in Galatians 5. He says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy." In fact let's read this together. Tell me what the fruit of the Spirit are. Say it with me. "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Did you notice something? Did you notice how these words are all the exact opposite of the kind of person Paul described in 2 Timothy 3? These people aren't abusive in speech, they're gentle. These people aren't rationed out of control, they have self-control.

Jesus says, "If the people you're listening to, if their character is like this, give them a listen. But if they're like this, stay away." What are they like in their character? Is their faith producing in them love and joy and gentleness and self-control, or is it producing self-promotion and mean language and rashness and stress and tension? Now he uses 19 words, that's a little bewildering, but there's an overarching theme here. Did you notice? One word Paul repeats over and over again, and it's the word love. It's really all about false loves, and I want you to get this. We are always motivated by what we love. Always. And that's why the answer to changing your behavior is never a set of rules, it's changing what you love.

And this is the whole point of Jesus. See God didn't just send rules, he sent his only begotten son so that we could love him. And that's what changes us. By contrast Paul says these people are lovers of self in verse 2, like the universe revolves around me and my idea is my only agenda is me. You get in my way, you get stepped on, everybody's jumping out of their path because they just are self-promoting self-lovers. And then they're lovers of money. They say they're in the ministry, but what they really love is money. Somebody sent me an email that had a picture of this board game the other day. Look at this. It's called Fleece the Flock. And it's a lot like Monopoly but the box says object of the game to compete with other televangelists in procuring assets and followers. And one of the squares says get a stretch limo, 100 grand. This is an example of the kind of thing it talks about. And this is exactly what these false teachers in Ephesus were playing. Fleece the Flock, lovers of money.

And Paul says they're lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. He nails them. It's all about who or what do you love. But toxic faith doesn't get that you got to change your love and love God from the inside out. Toxic faith is all about the externals. Page two. Here's some characteristics of toxic faith. Here's some of the forms it can take. Because people get fooled because it can be kind of slippery. It seems very holy. It's kind of hard to pin down. And so Paul says you got to run when you see this start to happen in your church. You run when you see this happening if you ever see this happening here at Twin Lakes Church. All right. He says here's four characteristics.

First, an emphasis on external behavior. An emphasis on external behavior and compliance. Great verse. Paul says these people in verse five are holding on to a form of godliness. Although they've denied its power. I want to show you the same verse in the New Living Translation. And let's all read this one together. Let me hear you. They what? Act religious but reject the power that could make them godly. What does this mean? Well in my observation there's both a liberal version of this and a conservative version of this. The conservative version of this is legalism, right? My own wife went to a very fundamentalist college where they taught that it was wrong for women to wear pants. How many women are sinning right now? It was wrong for women to wear pants. You had to wear dresses. Unless it was below freezing. Then it was acceptable to wear pants.

So how did they know? Well at the college they had the official thermometer in the courtyard outside. You think I'm kidding. I'm not. And only if on the official thermometer at 8 a.m. precisely it was below 32 degrees could the females at the college wear pants that day. Now of course this put you in a bind because to even check on the thermometer outdoors you had to what? Go outdoors. And presumably you had to be dressed to go outdoors. And so you had to put on a dress and then check the temperature and then maybe you could go back inside and change into pants. And they took this very seriously. In fact my wife almost got kicked out for breaking these rules. She was actually called to a meeting of the board of the college. And she had broken a couple of these rules like that. I mean it's hard to believe but they literally said we're sorry but you wore pants to check the thermometer. You're clearly out of the will of God. You know and by a one vote margin she stayed at that college.

Now in liberal churches you see the same kind of thing but it's in an overemphasis on ritual sometimes. I went to a church once in Europe that was amazing. Spectacular, vaulted ceilings, perfect ancient ritual, robes, acapella choir, the Eucharist and silver vessels that were so impressive. But afterwards I was talking to one of the pastors and it dawns on me this guy actually doesn't believe in God or the Bible or anything. But he loved the ritual as a piece of art. I mean he was into it. A form of godliness but denying its power. And here's the thing Paul says they reject the power that could make them godly. What power? God's grace. See listen, follow this logic. If you're in a religious system that is focused on the externals whether it's legalistic or ritualistic you never really change on the inside. Why not? Because you're always pretending you're already okay. No one can admit they're broken so no one can get healed. So you just get sicker and sicker inside your legalistic or ritualistic shell.

The next characteristic is praying on the weak. Praying P-R-E-Y not P-R-A-Y. Praying on the weak verse 6. Fascinating verse. They're the kind he says who work their way into people's homes and win the confidence. See it's a con game. Win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires. Now let me very quickly say he's not saying women are all weak. He's Paul's often accused of being misogynist but remember he starts out this book talking about the two best examples of faith he can recommend to Timothy and their two women named Lois and Eunice. He's talking here about how these false teachers in Ephesus have been working their way into homes praying on vulnerable, lonely, guilty women.

He says they worm their way into homes. Let me show you something amazing. I couldn't have shown you this just two years ago. Only discovered by archeologists in Ephesus are the interiors of many homes in Ephesus from the time of Paul. Look at this. They have unearthed how Ephesians lived and they lived well. These Ephesians houses are beautiful. They're terraced. They're well decorated. They have mute mosaics on the floor. They've got paintings on the walls. They have indoor plumbing, kitchens, living rooms, dining rooms. They even have what we would call media rooms. Only instead of a wide screen TV and a sound system they have little stages and what they would do is bring in a little acting troupe or musicians or lecturers into their homes to entertain them because they didn't have a TV to turn on so they would bring these live people. They would hire them, rent them for the night like in a stand on our little stage and entertain us. And that's apparently how the false teachers got in.

They were kind of like the first century version of televangelists brought in for the entertainment and clearly you look at how nice these homes were. They saw these people as ripe for picking. And Paul says they pick out people who are burdened with the guilt of sin. It's just genius of Paul to notice that people burdened with guilt and loaded down with, he says, sinful desires, those are the very people who are most vulnerable to legalistic religion. Because these comments say, "Oh, you want to get rid of your guilt of sin? You want to control those various desires?" Well, we're the experts. Let us tell you just what God wants from you and you do these precise things and then we'll come back and tell you how to do some more things and that's why they gave them third characteristic, endless new teachings.

Endless new teachings. Verse 7 Paul says they are forever following new teachings but never able to understand the truth. See, toxic leaders always have to generate new teachings to keep people coming back, right? That's how they gain a following. You're never done. You're never finished. There's always some new teaching. Because listen, don't miss this, for them, religion is all about technique. Technique. Say that word out loud with me. Technique. That's right. Remember this was written to the pastor of the church at Ephesus. In Ephesus, the Greek religion was not about the heart, having a relationship with Diana or Artemis or whoever. It was about technique. You paid your money to the priests of Diana and the priest told you to do a special secret ritual and say special secret words and then you might get your wish for a child or for good crops or something. And if you didn't get your wish, your technique must have been at fault.

And this whole way of thinking just transferred into the church. It's not about your heart. It's about your technique. You do it this way and the magic will happen. Now does this happen today in Christian churches here in America? Absolutely. Because we too live in a culture that is all about technique. I mean our secular culture is all about. You go to the magazine rack at any safe way and it's on every magazine no matter what it is. It's all about tips and tricks and techniques. Here's the technique for a better marriage. Here's the 10 tips for raising teenagers. Here's how you can have a better garden than your neighbor. Here's how you can have a firmer butt or whatever. All those things those magazines always talk about, right? It's all about the right technique and so if that's the way we're raised, we look at religion and people come along and say, "I can teach you the right technique to pray and be healed every time." Or "I can teach you the right technique to pray and get what you want every time." And we buy into it.

And that leads right into the fourth characteristic which is claims of special powers by these religious leaders. Claims of special powers. And this is one of the most obscure verses in the New Testament but it really helps explain what Paul's talking about. Let's dig into this. Verse 8, "Just as Janus and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers opposed the truth." Just as Janus and Jambres. This is a real key to understanding what Paul is getting at here. In Jewish tradition, in Paul's day, Janus and Jambres were the names of two of Pharaoh's court magicians. It's a great story. In this picture, that's them up on the right-hand corner in the silver and the guy standing behind him in the red. What these guys do is fake miracles to match Moses' real miracles. Like his staff turns into a snake, they do that too. And then when the Israelites leave Egypt, Janus and Jambres join the Israelites and pretend to be converts. But then when Moses is away up on Mount Sinai, these magicians lure the Israelites back into paganism. Let's all worship the golden calf together. Give us all your gold, ladies and gentlemen. We'll connect you to God. And they even lead Aaron and Miriam astray.

And Paul says the false leaders in the church are just like Janus and Jambres. Energy ministry, new teachings, miracles, collect all your gold and lead you astray. But Paul's going, "That's not Jesus. That's Janus and Jambres." So you see all these characteristics. You know what they all have in common? They're all a denial of God's grace. Because Paul went to town after town and taught, "By grace you're saved, not by works." And these false teachers come along and go, "Actually, grace is great. Paul's right. Grace is awesome. But it's really grace plus all this stuff." Paul laid a foundation for you. But now we're coming to you with more advanced teaching here. You could call it grace plus all this extra stuff you got to do to really get the blessing.

Now why would they consistently do that? I want you to think about something. If you only teach grace, you have no leverage over people. If you're only teaching grace, you have no leverage. You can't make people do anything because they have to be motivated from the inside out. But if you teach grace plus this new technique or this new technique, what you do is you become like a religion drug pusher. The people become addicts and faith becomes toxic. And so what are the cures for toxic faith? A lot more on this next weekend, but two quick things Paul mentions. First you got to learn from healthy people. Paul says, "You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life." I want you to look at what he draws attention to. He doesn't say, "You know all about my miracles." Paul did miracles too. He doesn't say, "You know all about the size of my churches." He built amazing churches. He doesn't say, "You know all about my new revelations. I get from God all the time. I mean, I am writing the Bible here." No, he says, "You know all about my way of life, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love." He's talking about, "You know all about my character."

And he says, "Look at how I am when I'm on stage and the flashy things, the brilliant things I can say." He says, "I want you to look at how I handle suffering because that's where the rubber meets the road. That's where all the masks come off. That's where it gets real." He says, "Look at how I handle endurance, persecution, suffering, all the kinds of things that happen to me. That's what character is revealed." And then he says, "In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." Why does he add that here? He's saying, "Don't let any of these kind of prosperity teachers teach you that they can keep you from all harm because hard times come to everybody, especially if you're choosing to be a follower of Christ Jesus."

Now in the next verse he says, "False teachers will prosper for a while," but he says, "Ultimately, they're all flashes in the pen because their error becomes obvious and people fall away, but in the meantime they cause plenty of damage. So stay alert, stay focused on healthy people, hang out with them, and then learn from God's Word. Stay in the Bible." Why? Because listen, the more you know, you know how they tell you, you got to install antivirus software on your computer, right? That's a good idea because viruses come in. Knowing the Bible is like installing antivirus software in your brain. The more you know the Bible, the less you're going to be led astray by false religious con men.

Paul says to Timothy, "But as for you, continue in what you've learned and have become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it and how from infancy you've known the holy Scriptures." Listen, you read about the crazy stuff that's happened in church history, right? Some of the nutty, horrible things that happened during the Crusades or whatever other area. And I don't know about you, but I read these parts of history and I go, "Christians did that seriously? Did they not read the Bible and see what Jesus did? They did not see what Jesus said to do the opposite of this?" Well the answer is no, they didn't. If you look at the eras in church history where things have really gone bonkers, in those eras they tended to be eras where the rank and file of the church was not reading the Bible.

And they were relying on their leaders to lead them in the right direction. That works, I guess, as long as your leaders are leading in the right direction. But if they go crazy, then the whole church goes crazy. And you know what worries me is right now we're at a record low in terms of biblical literacy in this country. And that means we are being set up for crazy because we can't see the crazy coming. That's one of the reasons why we put those daily meditations attached there on page three to your sermon notes that have something to do with the sermon every week. We say, "Get into the Word. Get into this verse, this verse, this verse. Answer some questions about it. Here's a suggested prayer because we want you to get into the Word. This is why we always, every week, we've got free paperback New Testaments, free paperbacks of the whole Bible that are available to you. If you don't have a Bible, you can pick them up for free.

This is why we have classes here, small groups, Wednesday night classes, because we want you to get into the Word because it makes a huge difference. Now, if you're thinking, "Yeah, René, you know what? How do I know that you're not a toxic leader?" If you're listening to this, that has got to be what you're thinking. You're going, "How do I know you're just not cleverly bringing all this up as a ploy, as clever misdirection so we don't see that you're evil?" Yeah, well, you don't know that. You don't know that. That's why you have to make sure that you're not just an audience, but that we're in relationship together and you can see what's my character, what am I like under suffering, and am I teaching according to the Word. This is real.

There's a family at this church who were completely involved in a church up in the city that you might have heard of, People's Temple, Pastor Jim Jones. People's Temple started out great. You talk about doing stuff for the poor. Well, they did more for the poor in the city than any other church did. They got recognition in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune, the key to the city from the mayor, and then their pastor, this man, Jim Jones, had a vision. Instead of just fixing all the stuff that's wrong in the city, let's start fresh. Let's create paradise in paradise. Let's move to a tropical garden spot, and let's create a community fresh based on God's laws, not human laws.

Now the people that I know who attend here at TLC right now didn't go down there with them, so they weren't there when he told everyone to drink poisoned Kool-Aid, and hundreds died. Now why didn't they move down there with them? Because they saw, this family tells me, they knew just enough of the Bible. They had started to get into the Word just enough to see the crazy coming, to know, "Wow, Pastor Jim Jones isn't preaching the gospel anymore. He's not preaching grace anymore. He's only preaching the new revelations and visions of Jim Jones." And it saved their lives knowing the Bible.

See, this doesn't have to be the face of the church. Most churches, this is not the face of the church. It is possible for church to be healthy, to be amazing, to be kind, to be healing, to be wonderful, to be creative. That's how I feel already about this place. I believe that this is the kind of church Jesus came to build. My biggest goal in life is to help lead this church in that direction. But how do you and I make sure this is where it goes? The bottom line is this. You and I need to live a life transformed, that's for sure. You want to be holy, you want to change, but be transformed by God's love, His grace focused on God's Word because God is all the power you need.

And when church is moving in this direction, it can just be so beautiful. You know, as my closing story, I've actually asked Trent Smith to come back up because my closing illustration is a song that Trent wrote about what a healthy Christian community looks like. It's kind of a reminder to himself that church can be healthy. Church can be filled with grace. I love the lyrics of this song and in a moment I just want Trent to sing it and I just want you to behave in this. It's really a prayer. But Trent, before you sing it, why don't you explain to us the story behind the song and how you've composed it.

I've been around churches since conception pretty much. I grew up, my childhood church was in Alaska. It was about 50 people, I guess, maybe, give or take. And like I said, I've been around church. It's not always been awesome. Not always a great experience. There were good things too, but apparently 50 people was too many because when I was 12 that church split. Yeah, kind of weird when suddenly you're the only person in your Sunday school class. It's kind of awkward. But my folks didn't, my family didn't go to church anywhere when I was in high school and I found a youth group at another church and tried to kind of fit in there, but those kids had their own friends and it didn't work out so well. Plus I was home schooled, which didn't help.

And then I actually ended up going to a really legalistic college too. In fact, women couldn't wear pants there unless it was zero degrees. Seriously. Wow. Yeah, sorry. That's like one of you, but... We were more spiritual, clearly. And then I've been on staff at churches since I was 22 years old and that shows all, you see a whole different side of things. This song came out of a time, a season when I was just feeling like stuck, feeling like I was spinning my wheels in ministry. And also it seemed like almost every week we were hearing of another marriage in the church that was failing or family just imploding. And I remember grieving over this and this heaviness and asking God, like, "Why?" And wondering, "Why are these people waiting until it's too late to ask for help? Why isn't this community somewhere where people can be vulnerable and transparent and that it's safe and it's okay and a place to find healing?"

And I was sitting with my guitar and just thinking about those things and it felt like God spoke to me and renewed my faith and sort of gave me a vision for what the community of faith could look like, where He is in the center of it and where His presence is pervading and overruling. So He kind of restored my faith that day and so this song came out of that. Where you are, this comfort and forgiveness, clarity and purpose, where you are and where you are, this love for one another, families knit together where you are. So turn our hearts, our hearts to you and fill our souls, our souls with you. We fix our eyes, our weary eyes on you. All Jesus is love.

And where you are, there's brokenness and healing, tears and interceding where you are. And where you are, there's passion in our worship and time together is worth it where you are. So turn our hearts, our hearts to you and fill our souls, our hungry souls with you. We fix our eyes, our weary eyes on you. All Jesus is love. All Jesus is love. All Jesus is love. Come and free you. And where you are, there's joy in your salvation, there's grace for every season where you are. And where you are, there's victory and power and praise your eyes forever where you are. So turn our hearts, our stubborn hearts to you and fill our souls, our hungry souls with you. We fix our eyes, our weary eyes on you. Jesus, come and free you. Come and free you.

Let's pray together. God, we thank you that there is, that you've not given us a spirit of fear and insecurity but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And we pray, Lord, that this place could be a place where people find grace and healing, where people don't wait until it's too late to ask for help and to be human. God, I also pray for anybody who's here this morning who's been burned by people or by a church, who's made themselves vulnerable and been taken advantage of. I pray that your love and your grace would shine in their life this morning. God, we ask that this would be that kind of place. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.